The Progress of Man from Advanced Commentary to Sophomoric Opinion

December 27, 2006

Okay, so there's this DVD that's being passed around, which was handed to me by a dear friend at a get-together a couple of weeks ago. It's called "The Secret".

So I pop it in, and the first thing I notice is that it's designed to look like a trailer for "The DaVinci Code," replete with faux-DaVinci-notebook sketches and little background skits about how "the secret" has been passed through the generations, hidden and hunted down. Evidently, it was written in stone-tablet form and on papyrus scrolls in dark back rooms and spirited away in the dead of night while armies of knights kicked down doors in search of its power.

Eventually, as it becomes clear that this is going to be some type of self-help video, we come to the gyst of what this all-powerful secret really is. It's "the law of attraction," which is to say, the natural, universal law of "what you think, will become reality." The idea is that whatever a person can think of, whatever we concentrate on - that which fills our consciousness - the universe will manifest in reality.

I have a number of problems with this theory.

The first thing that occurs to me, while watching the DVD, is that if this were truly the most powerful knowledge in the universe, then the people telling me about it wouldn't need to create a vessel for doing so that looks like a cheap knock-off of a popular movie.

The second thing is the people in the DVD. Although they claim that many of the greatest minds in human history - Beethoven, Alexander Graham Bell, the Buddha (?!), Victor Hugo, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King, Plato, Isaac Newton, and others - were privy to this great secret, the most recognizable person they could muster for the DVD is Jack Canfield, author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul." Seems to me that the greatest and most powerfully life-changing secret in history would be a bit better-represented in the modern era. It's one thing to claim the support of men like Winston Churchill, but it's quite another to be able to enlist the support of those who are still living - and thus still have the power to bring a lawsuit.

The next thing is the theory (or "law") itself. "Attraction" contends that, when you think about something, say, a bicycle, you're sending that thought out into the universe, and the universe will respond by sending you that bicycle. I say, that's a load of hogwash. What actually happens is what's been called the method of Creative Visuallization. Notice I say method, not natural law. That's because method refers to something that you do, not something that the universe does for you.

In Creative Visuallization, which is actually used in "The Secret" as part of their "law", you keep the image of your goal in front of you whenever possible, as a means of constant mental programming. Eventually, your goal will become "hard-wired" into your daily thought process, better facilitating your focus on that goal. But you still have to go get it. You still have to achieve your goals for yourself. The universe, in reality, will not simply provide for you. If it did, why would anyone work?

Another issue that I feel compelled to bring up is the notion that all matter is comprised of energy. Now, mind you, I'm no physicist, but I really believe that matter and energy are two different things. Matter is the physical "things" of this universe, while energy is the ability to move, the ability to do. Energy is defined - at least, it was when I went to school - as "the ability to do work". In this DVD, a physician named Dr. Ben Johnson (who doesn't practice medicine but co-owns a company that distributes "the Teachings of the Healing Codes") tells us how matter is broken down: There are molecules, then within molecules there are atoms, and within the atoms there is energy. But I seem to remember from high school, something about molecules (protons, neutrons and electrons) making up the atom. Now, these molecules are embued with a certain inherent energy, and are therefore constantly moving around a central nucleus, the size and makeup of which determining the exact combination of molecules existing in its orbit - and thus determining the type of matter, as expressed by its elemental symbol. But although there's a certain energy present in each atom, atoms are matter, not energy.

If I understand this much because I remember it from a high school science class twenty years ago, seems a doctor would understand it well enough. Don't ya think?

All this, combined with the nonsense I've been able to dredge up on the website (http://thesecret.tv/ ) - like a description of the Buddha as someone who parted water and "manipulated" physical matter - give me the feeling that someone's trying to sell me something, and send me running, with a groan and a shiver. If anyone tells me that all I have to do to get whatever I want - money, relationships, cars, houses, whatever - is to think about it and then receive it from the universe, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to call that nonsense...and I don't think it's unreasonable when my instincts send me looking for the sales pitch.

December 26, 2006

In my links, you can find Little Miss Anu. Anyone familiar with Tengu House is probably also familiar with Anu's blog. When I first found it, it was titled "Stripped Nude," presumably because of the emotionally-exposed nature of some of her posts. More recently, she just called it "Little Miss Anu" on the advice of a friend.

(sorry 'bout lifting the pic)

Anu lived in Mumbai, India, and kept three blogs; one for her art and two for sharing bits of inspiration. See, Anu had been dealt a difficult hand. She suffered from accute kidney failure, and underwent constant dialysis. But kidney failure and her resulting frailty didn't stop Anu. She took classes in aikido - she'd just tested for her 5th kyu - and she worked very hard at her job, posting snippets of uplifting poetry and other bits as she went along. She had an amazing gift for compassion, and often posted about the beauty she'd found in the face of a homeless street child, or the smile of some fellow bed-ridden hospital patient.

Although we never met other than in the blogosphere, and we were in fact on other sides of the world, I've considered Anu a friend since the first time I read her blog entries. The last time we spoke was 18 November.

Word is going round now that Little Miss Anu was killed in a car accident in Mumbai on either 10 or 12 December.

Listen.

Be mindful of your friends, and thankful for every moment. Do what you can to live happily, and to bring that happiness to others. And when your time with them is over, live with a sense of remembrance for who they were. I'm deeply honored to have been one of Anu's friends for that brief time.

Venerable Master Hsin Ting is coming to Houston! He will be speaking at the Fo Guang Shan Chung Mei Temple in Stafford on January 5, from 7:30 to 9:30pm. His topic wil be "Buddhist Perspectives on Causation: The Fundamental View of Buddhist Causation".

Venerable Master Hsin Ting is currently the second-highest ranking monastic in the Fo Guang Shan order, and is a past president of the worldwide Buddha's Light International Association.

This is exciting for me. I had the honor of meeting Venerable Master Hsin Ting while in Taiwan, and look forward to hearing him speak here. If you're in the Houston area, you're invited to visit the temple and hear him speak with us!

December 19, 2006

I know I've banned politics from my blog, but I just can't help myself. I just read an article about some of the evidence that has been used against Saddam Hussein in his trial for mass murder.

According to this article, Saddam wrote in a 1992 memo that this "Dutch businessman" provided Iraq with "rare and banned chemical weapons". One has to wonder, HOW MUCH more evidence does the world need before we no longer have to keep hearing the media-lemmings claim that Iraq didn't have banned weapons?

In Iraq, the people believe that the US has grossly mismanaged our operations there, BUT they also understand that Saddam was not only a civil-rights monster, but a weapons-hoarding dictator who had to be removed. I know this because I went to Iraq and talked to many Iraqis over a period of more than a year. Now, if this evidence is real and truthful, then it confirms everything the American government said prior to the 2003 invasion.

What we have here in America is a REFUSAL to listen to the admissions of the devil himself. I realize that the trend is to assume we're wrong about everything, but the fact is, sometimes we're right - even when it's ugly. It's time we, as individual Americans and as a nation, admitted it.

December 14, 2006

Last night, while bloggers like me were writing about movies, politics or religion - whatever - or eating, drinking and sleeping - 25-year old Johnny Ruiz, right here in Houston, was putting his two kids in the car. Probably because he was drunk, he didn't bother to buckle in his 2-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, and his 10-year-old brother. He then took off on the beltway feeder road (which is what we here in Houston call a frontage road or an access road), and brought the car up to over a hundred miles an hour.

Now, as he was drunk and stupid, and obviously didn't care about the young lives in his charge - and as we all know, no one pays any attention to what's going on while they're driving anymore, anyway - you can see it coming. He left the road, got airborne, and crashed into a barricade at over a hundred miles an hour.

His daughter was ejected from the car and suffered "severe head trauma". The extent of her permanent brain damage is yet unknown. Ruiz's 10-year-old brother had to be restrained from rushing back into the car when it burst into flames, burning Ruiz's 2-year old son alive.

What the heck are we doing wrong? What has happened to a society, when people think nothing about climbing drunk into a car with their babies? And, more to the point, what can be done about it? How does a society fix that? Or is there a fix? I don't think the answer is more prisons, or tougher sentences. In fact, I don't think we're even looking for the answers to the right questions.

Does the answer lie in the Dharma, or in some other religion? Is more Church involvement the way? We as a society obviously need something. Once, a few years ago, I was sitting at an intersection, waiting for the light to change, and I became aware of a tiny little girl running around in the intersection. I rolled down the window to ask her what she was doing out there, maybe where she lived, you know - something like that. But her father, who was standing nearby, got belligerent with me, upset that I would be so brazen as to question his judgment.

Now, this little girl couldn't have been older than 4, and I'd assumed that she'd gotten away from her family. It never crossed my mind that her family were the people who'd taken her out into the intersection to begin with (they were out there raising funds for a girls' softball team or something).

Well, I let the matter drop, which is a bad thing because the girl was hit by a car within a few minutes. I never had any way of finding out, as her distraught father ran for help, carrying the limp and unconscious little girl, if she made it or not. But the image will stay with me forever.

So I ask again. What the heck is wrong with us? What makes grown men get defensive about their parenting decisions, even while they let their babies play in traffic? I'm not here to criticize anyone's parenting, per se - but I will criticize whatever it is that causes people to care so little that they make such dreadful and obviously wrong choices. Are we just not paying attention?

You gotta be kidding! Borat is nominated for two Golden Globe awards? Now, don't get me wrong - I couldn't care less who gets what award in Hollywood. To me, they're all a bunch of wierdos. But Borat? I mean, does anyone other than the Hollywood wierdos REALLY think that movie deserved an award? Is the Hollywood system REALLY prepared to reward a film that amounts to a longer and phonier version of Jackass with a fake accent by awarding it a couple of Golden Globes?

Just more evidence of the widening rift between the Hollywood whack-jobs and the rest of the country, in my opinion. What do you think?

December 11, 2006

How do you feel about the Federal prison system? Does this make you want to look into finding a better way of dealing with such criminals? Or, do you take solace in the fact that the inmates don't like it?

Or, do you believe there should be a happy medium? Is it possible that no one deserves to be locked in a cell for 23 hours a day?

A friend sent me this, about a storm experienced in North Dakota last winter. Given the tendency of these oft-passed-around stories to be false, I think this story says a lot whether it's true or not. Don't you?

Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event---may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

George Bush did not come. FEMA did nothing. No one howled for the government. No one blamed the government. No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit. Our Mayors did not blame Bush or anyone else. Our Governor didn't blame Bush or anyone else either. CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snow storm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards. No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House. No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody - demanded that the government do something. Nobody expected the government to do anything either. No Larry King, No Bill O'Reilly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera. No Sean Penn, No Barbara Streisand, No Hollywood types to be found. Nope, we just melted the snow for water. Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow-engulfed cars.

Truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny. Local restaurants made food, and the police and fire departments delivered it to snowbound families. Families took in the stranded strangers. We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns. We put on an extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die". We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves. "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate." It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on. Maybe, SOME people will get the message: The world does not owe you a living. In fact, no one owes you anything. It's up to YOU to live.